Sunday, March 12, 2017

At The End of the Rainbow

This was one of last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. I made a few of the blocks (well, not really blocks - maybe call them units?) each month from 4.5 inch scraps.

I didn't have much of anything in my stash that looked right for border pieces so did purchase a little fabric that seemed to go with a rainbow quilt - birds against a rainbow sky and a rainbow of paw prints. I had some rainbow looking stripe fabric that I used for the binding but didn't have enough so used what was left of the birds to add the necessary length.

I had enough machine quilting thread in all colors of the rainbow to use to straight stitch along the straight sides of the blocks and then also used white to stitch along each straight side of the white sections. BUT I hand quilted in perle #12 along each zig zaggy sides of the colored sections in the neutral areas. I really didn't want to have turn the quilt on my DSM in order to stitch along the zig and zags and found big stitching to actually be quicker and easier.

I had this rick rack fabric in my stash meaning to use it with some 30s repro quilts but decided this was the right place for it. BUT I didn't have enough after I so carefully matched the rick rack when stitching up the fabric to be wide enough (or was it to be long enough?)...anyway I had to cut a piece off one side to add to the back but still didn't have enough so those birds came out to play again on the backing. And that's the way it goes...

Now I'll mail this(after I find the right box) to my youngest brother, Steve, who lives far far away in a land called Florida. I hope it's a pleasant surprise to say I love you, I'm thinking of you and take care of yourself and your heart. He unexpectedly had quadruple bypass surgery last year around Easter after he suffered two heart attacks.

Such a lovely quilt, made with such a lot more of love. Your brother will be blown away when he opens his surprise package. I love the way you have used big stitch Quilting with Perle threads - always works for me too.